


This Vast Desert

by Alemantele



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Character Study, Experimenting with style haha, Gen, spoilers for ep32 and onward, strexstrexstrex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 02:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1587839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alemantele/pseuds/Alemantele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil wakes up one day and he knows that it is coming--’it’ being the long prophesied End Of It All, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Vast Desert

Cecil knows Night Vale. Cecil knows that Night Vale is as vast and endless as the desert that surrounds it, and that even though there is snow elsewhere, Night Vale is forever.

Or, at least, this is what he tells himself. This is what he says to himself--late at night, midday, from sunrise to sunset. He repeats it over and over, _Night Vale is forever,_ so that it will come true.

Cecil wakes up one day and he knows that it is coming--’it’ being the long prophesied End Of It All, of course. Cecil wakes up to the sun glaring at him from the sand dunes outside and there is just something not quite right about it. The sun is a sun that shines over a rotten corpse, flies buzzing in the hazy summer air--not a sun that rises lazily over a small desert town.

For the less metaphorically inclined: Cecil wakes up one day and he sees the yellow helicopters of Strex Corp. and he knows that the end is near.

For the more abstract thinkers: Cecil wakes up one day and there is a sea of huge black flies in his mind and Night Vale falls into rippling waters of golden ichor.

He doesn’t want to believe this. _Night Vale is forever,_ he says without words. The words are in his posture--the way he holds his head high. The words are in his very gestures and he says them over and over without making a sound. _Night Vale is forever._

But when he walks into the radio station and there is new station management and everything is so different despite seeming exactly the same, Cecil feels a chill run down his spine and there is suddenly so much sun it blinds him.

 _Night Vale is forever,_ he wants to say, but he knows that his words will only turn into flies if he speaks.

So, instead, he recites the words they give him, smiles without the gleam of the sleepy desert sun in his eyes, and speaks without the echoing of a vast desert behind him. He will not let the words contaminate Night Vale. Cecil is the voice of Night Vale and he can weave truths with his words, but he will not let these intruders touch his town.

He recites the words and feels the flies buzzing in his head and hopes that Night Vale will not be swallowed. Night Vale is a desert, it cannot sink, but somehow, the possibility of drowning has crept into its future.

The end is near. Cecil knows this.

But damn it all if he’s not going to fight to stop it.

_Night Vale is forever._

**Author's Note:**

> This is more of a character study than anything with actual plot, but it was super fun to experiment with a new style and everything.


End file.
